A Little and Lovely Gift to Make

My Grammy was in the hospital last week and it was pretty terrible for me. She went in for a surgery, but wasn't recovering as well as to be expected and it was pretty nerve-wracking for a few days.

I couldn't go and visit her, but I wanted to let her know that we were all thinking of her in our household and that she needed to pull through in order to see our smiling faces again. I thought bringing her a framed photo of the girls might be the thing to keep her holding on, but I figured the frame would be easily knocked over in her hospital room. I needed something that wouldn't break easily.

A pocket sized accordion album ended up being the perfect gift! I was able to fit 15 different pictures and a cover, and it folded up nice and neat with a black satin ribbon.

Making an accordion album like this one was very easy and pretty much just used what I had around the house. It was also a project that was completed, start to finish, in under an hour.

For materials I used:

*1 sheet of 11 x 14 Bristol Board (a heavy weight white paper)
a heavy card stock or watercolor paper would also be fine

*Gluestick

*16 images that I printed off of my computer
you can use up those photos you aren't sure what to do with

* 1 ft. satin ribbon

* Decorative scrapbooking paper

* Stapler

Directions:

1. Cut the Bristol Board (or cardstock/watercolor paper) in half. Divide each half into four sections like an accordion. Tape the two halves together to get a longer accordion with a total of 8 sections.

2. Cut scrapbook paper to fit nicely inside each section. Glue on. Cut photos to fit onto another piece of contrasting paper. Glue on.

3. Decide which end is going to be the back. Staple the ribbon centered evenly along the center of the back page. Make sure you staple in a way that you will be able to hide the staples by covering with the photos, on both sides of the back section.

4. Glue photos onto all the sections, front and back. Let dry and tie up with a bow, cutting the ribbon down to the size you want your bow to be.

Admire!

I used a mini-print of my Love Bunnies picture for the cover of my accordion album and made a note by printing a greeting on the computer and gluing it in. Can't get any easier than that!

And best of all, Grammy was out of the hospital less than 24 hours after receiving my album, even though the doctors had thought she would be in for at least three days more. I told her it was the album that helped her get well so soon. She agreed.

Love really is the best medicine of all.